Most of the media had set the whole thing up to be a complete disaster with traffic chaos, strikes, security lapses etc, I thought the UK pulled it out the bag and set the bar quite high for future events. The opening ceremony highlight for me was Her Majesty and Bond, I'm assuming that everyone in the stadium was instructed not to look up as Queenie descended with her dress billowing in the wind....Royal protocol and all that. Nice tribute to the NHS, if only they had that many beds, get your finger out Cameron and fund it properly.
From what I read in the early days of events, it appears that the French were gloating how they had turned up in the UK to win our medals. Needless to say they weren't gloating for long, in fact they turned to accusing us of using 'magic wheels' in the cycling. The irony of that is, that the wheels were made in France. It's not how you start Frenchie, it's how you finish.
I must admit to being apathetic to the Olympics during the long drawn out build up. How many products can you advertise with a tenuous link associated to the most celebrated festival of games. One that sticks in my mind (so you could say that they did their job) is Fairy dishwasher tablets, how can they link that to the Olympics I hear you say, easy.....mothers, have kids, kids grow up, they need feeding, food needs cutlery, plates etc and they need washing.....see simple. I'm surprised Andrex didn't go one further with that.
On to the games themselves, the pressure was on from the start for Team GB to claim their first medal, this didn't happen for a few days, but when it did, I think there was a collective sigh of relief throughout the country. That was it, apart from a few days we carried on winning medals and far exceeding the 19 golds in Bejing with a total of 29.
Big shout outs to all of Team GB who's pride and passion was there for all to see and backed by the vocal support of a nation became the feel good factor of the summer. Praise to should go to the organisers, volunteers and the Armed Forces who all drew praise from around the world for their efforts.
A couple of down sides as I see them, Security services provided by a well known company, hang your heads in shame you money grabbing failures. The other one, the Men's football team, rubbish. Over paid primadonnas, who think they can just turn up, get a grip, you are playing for your nation's pride and the chance of a medal.....if you had an ounce of Sir Chris Hoy's passion and will to win, you'd be world beaters.
Let's hope we can build on this and take a leaf out of the cycling teams ethos, marginal gains.
So that was a small detour from the main event of this year, nothing will compare to the epic battle to conquer the three highest peaks on the UK mainland all in 24 hours. These guys have trained
intensely for at least a couple of weeks, some longer and by the time of the day in question they will be.....knackered probably.
Chris
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